The Hockey Life

PART THIRTY-FIVE: SHARP PAIN
Seeing Patrick after the weird conversation with Brian was a little awkward at first. I studied every word Pat said to me to try to see if Brian had a reason to be so worried about me or not. Unfortunately, I would never understand boys, and I didn’t even know if a guy was flirting with me, let alone if they wanted to sleep with me. I quickly decided that it didn’t matter. I would never be able to figure Patrick out. Not completely, anyways.
I guess that was a good thing because other, more important things came up in my life. My work with the Hawks was getting more complex. I had actually begun to work with players. I mostly just monitored them and helped them stretch and condition themselves, but it was a good start. As much as I wanted to do more advanced work, it was a good thing that there were no injuries for me to tend to. That changed, though.
It was a game during the last week of the regular season when the Hawks were unfortunate enough to get a bad injury on the team. I was at the game when it happened. Tess was with her family so she wasn’t able to attend it with me, but I got Brian to come with. We sat in 100 level seats, which was always a cool experience. I think the best part of it now was the fact that Patrick could always spot me during warm ups, and he’d wave or wink.
The game was going well. The Hawks were in the lead during the first period, but then the second period came. A Philadelphia Flyer had his eyes on Sharpy, apparently. He sent him into the boards, a very normal move, except that there was a lot of unnecessary force. Sharpy went down and he was slow to get back up. I could tell it was his ankle. It twisted a weird way. I had been in a similar situation in the past, so I really felt for him. Ankle injuries really sucked.
“Shit. And they chose Sharpy to hurt, of all people,” Brian said.
“I know. I really hope he’s okay,” I said. I had never seen an NHL hockey injury happen live before other than on TV. This time I was there, though, and it was so real. I was thankful that it wasn’t like on TV where I had to watch replays constantly, but that didn’t matter. The hit replayed in my head anyways.
“Lena. Lena!” I heard my name being called as I watched Sharpy get taken off the ice. He struggled to walk himself, so he had a ref and Tazer help him. I had to look away though to figure out who was talking to me. I found Brad and wondered what he could possibly want with me in the middle of the game.
“Hi Brad,” I answered, confused.
“I know that you’re here for entertainment right now, but would you by any chance feel willing to come back to the locker room? They’re going to have to tend to Sharp and it would be good experience for you to sit in and watch,” he said.
“Would you mind if I left for a bit?” I wondered, looking at Brian.
“Of course not. Go ahead, Lean. Make sure they take good care of him. The faster he gets back on the ice, the better,” Brian said. I followed Brad back to the locker room and I saw Sharpy with the trainers. I could tell he was in a lot of pain.
“That looked like a pretty bad hit,” I said to Sharpy.
“It was,” he answered, wincing a little as the trainers began tending to him.
“It’s definitely your ankle. We’re going to wrap it up for now, okay?” a trainer said. He nodded.
“Can you help me out, Lena?” Mike Gapski, the head athletic trainer, asked. I was amazed that he wanted me working with a player who had a serious injury, but I went along with it. We tended to Sharpy who generously thanked me for my help.
“How long will he be out?” I wondered. I had a guess in my mind, but I wanted to know for sure.
“Probably about six weeks, depending on his progress,” I was told. Apparently I was a good guesser.
When Sharpy went back out onto the bench, I went back to my seat. Brian was amazed when I told him that I helped out his favorite player with his injury.
“It’s not like I did it myself, Brian. Everyone was watching carefully and I was just helping out. It’s not like I’m a doctor who just performed some breakthrough surgery,” I told him. Inside I was really excited that I got some experience in and proud of myself for not completely screwing anything up, but I didn’t want to be braggy.
Even with my great experience, the game didn’t look the same after Sharpy’s incident. The Hawks lost their mojo and they ended up losing 4-2. The injury clearly messed with every player’s mind. Hockey was a team sport, though, so that wasn’t uncommon.
After the game Brian and I stayed to see the team, as usual. It was a little new to him still, but for me, it was almost like a habit. I located Patrick at his stall right away and gravitated towards him automatically. After a hug, a kiss, and a comment on the game, I checked on Sharpy. He was still in pain, but it wasn’t quite as excruciating. I made sure not to stay by his stall too long, since he probably wanted space and I knew Pat would want me to come back. He was greedy with me in the locker room. I didn’t really understand why since most of the players were taken, but he assured me that just because they were married or had girlfriends, that didn’t mean they still didn’t look at me like hormonal teenage boys would. My theory was that Pat just got jealous easily.
“Can you come over tonight?” he wondered when I found my way back into his arms.
“I don’t know, I was thinking that we could go to Taco Bell instead,” I joked, reminding him of our ridiculous experience with fans and paparazzi.
“Very funny,” he said.
“I know.”
“Well, can you come over?”
“I guess if you really want me to…” I decided, pretending that I wasn’t really interested.
“Of course I want you to,” he told me before pulling me into a kiss.
“Get a room!” I heard someone shout. I didn’t pay attention to who it was. I was used to comments like this and I was sure that Patrick was too. Before we left, I told Brian what was going on and told him not to worry, since I figured he would.
When we got to Patrick’s, we immediately made pizza rolls. Apparently he was starving. I knew that playing hockey could make a person hungry, but I was still a little amazed at how much he wanted food.
“I need to eat away the pain from the loss,” he lied. What an excuse.
“Oh, come on. You win some, you lose some. That’s not a valid excuse for eating a million pizza rolls in one night.
“But this sadness is a valid excuse for you to make me feel better, right?” he asked.
“We’ll see,” I told him.
It was like any other apartment date with him except that he invited me to go to the movies with him later in the week. It was on a day when he actually had a little free time and luckily I did too. As dumb as it was, I was really excited for our movie date. We usually didn’t go out for dates, and I never really went to the movies. I just hoped that everyone at the theater would do their best to leave us alone.

Notes

Sorry it took me so long to update! I was working on another non-hockey related story. I'll try to update again before my winter break is over!